Gartner claims that the leading-brand companies accounted for $104.3 billion of semiconductors on a design total available market (TAM) basis in 2010. This figure was over a third of semiconductor vendors' worldwide chip revenue and accounted to a year-over-year increase of approximately $26.3 billion, which was up 33.7 percent from 2009.

Eight of the top 10 companies in 2009 remained in the top 10 in 2010, accounting for a third of all semiconductor demand.

Unsurprisingly one of the growth drivers last year were mobile PCs, smartphones and LCD TVs.

Gartner also pointed out that PC vendors such as HP, Apple, Dell and Lenovo increased their design TAM greatly in 2010, due to a strong demand for mobile PCs.

However, while Samsung also took advantage of this sector, Nokia remained on the sidelines. Samsung also triumphed alongside Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic, enjoying market growth from flat-panel TVs.

Apple was praised for driving the industry as a result of its hardware, software and services for PCs, smartphones, portable media players and tablets.

And even the relatively small TV services got a mention, with Gartner claiming that this sector would become a key market within the next few years.

Masatsune Yamaji, senior research analyst at Gartner, said: "Judging from purchasing TAM, Asia/Pacific, and especially China, offers the greatest opportunities in most of the device and application market segments,"

"It will be difficult for most of the semiconductor device vendors, especially replaceable general-purpose device vendors, to achieve the full design-win benefit without establishing a strong distribution network in Asia/Pacific."

"Semiconductor device vendors must pay attention not just to the design and purchasing TAM by company, but also to that by region. This is the key to avoiding inappropriate sales resource allocation.

"Semiconductor device vendors must keep an eye on the design-win opportunity in the U.S., while they must establish a strong distribution network in China."